Fix Me A Snack

A fight almost broke out in my kitchen this afternoon. After my kids spent half the day hidden away in their room eating Halloween candy, they pounced on a plate of perfectly roasted kale. We had to take the plate away so that the grown-ups could have a few.

I’ve finally figured out  the right amount of salt and how to avoid burning the little suckers. I know everyone else got into kale chips years ago. But I just couldn’t figure them out. I wanted to know what all the fuss was about and even posted a recipe back in 2010. But even then it seemed like kale chips were nothing more than a snack that super healthy people had talked themselves into. Kale is so chocked full of nutrition it’s hard not to eat some even when it is not at it’s best. But the kids will have none of it unless it tastes good. Kale chips to the rescue.

Like so many of the great snack foods, with kale chips it’s all about the salt. When they’re roasted properly, they’re crispy but they instantly melt in your mouth. There isn’t a ton of flavor unless you get a chip that’s still soggy. So again, it’s all about the salt.

Roasting the chips at a low temperature allows the kale to dry out evenly and avoids burning. Gone are the days of desperately stirring the kale around on the baking sheet trying to let those last few bits dry out before the other half starts to burn. Burnt kale chips are foul and should be outlawed. The extra time is takes to roast the kale at a lower temperature is well worth it.

Kale Chips Recipe

Curly kale is perfectly suited to kale chips. I prefer it greatly to dino/tuscan kale for this recipe. Ripping the leaves off of the stem quickly with your hands rather than removing the stem with a knife saves a lot of time. It takes me 10 minutes to get the kale in the oven, if not less.

1 bunch curly kale
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 generous pinches of fine salt

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

Wash each leaf of kale. Shake off  any excess water and rip each leaf off of the stem and into bite-sized pieces. Discard the stems and place the kale into a large bowl. Drizzle the olive oil over the kale. Coat the kale with the oil using your hands to mix and gently massage the kale until the color starts to brighten and the leaves soften a tad. This only takes a minute. Sprinkle on the salt and mix well.

Spread the kale out over the two baking sheets and place in the top third and lower third of the oven. Bake for 20 minutes.

Lower the oven’s temperature to 250 degrees Fahrenheit.

Pull the baking sheet out of the oven and toss the kale with your hands to redistribute it. Rotate the trays turning them from front to back and switching the top sheet with the bottom sheet. Bake for approximately 15 more minutes or until they are crispy. Taste and sprinkle on more salt if necessary. Serve immediately.

Homemade Cheese Crackers from 101 Cookbooks. I love the cute owl shapes!

Dark chocolate cherry energy bites from Oh She Glows.

Halloween candy: 4 ways to find it a new home from Cook Play Explore.

Mother Jones: How the industry minimized (and minimizes) the health effects of sugars from Food Politics.

15 Fabulous Ways to Eat Fall Vegetables from The Kitchn.

Freeze Fruit on a stick…in greek yogurt! from The Kitchn.

Choose the right apple (flow chart!) from Slate via Culinate.

Banana and peanut butter are great friends. I guess the only thing that would make these little muffins any better would be a handful of chocolate chips. Ooohhh, I hadn’t thought of that. Well, take it away readers and do what you will. I think these muffins are perfectly sweet just the way they are. But you gotta do what you gotta do.

Banana Peanut Butter Mini Muffin Recipe

1 cup white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup ground flaxseed
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice

3 medium ripe bananas, throughly mashed
2 large eggs, beaten
1/3 cup plain yogurt
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
3 tablespoon butter, melted and cooled

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenhiet. Move oven racks to the upper third and lower third of the oven.

Grease two mini muffin pans with spray oil or softened butter. Set aside.

Whisk together the flours, sugars, flaxseed, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and allspice in a medium bowl. In a large bowl, mix together the mashed banana, eggs, yogurt, peanut butter, and butter.

Divide the batter between the muffin pans putting about a heaping tablespoon in each cup.  Bake for 15 minutes, rotating the pans once during baking.

Run a knife around the rim of each muffin cup to loosen the muffin. Transfer the muffins to a cooling rack. Serve or store in an airtight container for up to three days. Extra muffins can be frozen.

Yield: 48 mini muffins
Prep time: 25 minutes
Bake time: 15 minutes

Here’s a snack that the kids and I can’t say ‘no’ to lately. Even the peanut butter hater in my household is a big fan. It’s the best I’m-craving-chocolate-but-I actually-want-to-put-some-real-food-in-my-body kind of snack there is.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie

2 overripe bananas, peeled
1/4 cup smooth peanut butter
2 tablespoons chocolate syrup
1 cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk

Put it all in a blender and whiz until smooth. Makes 2 cups.

The days are getting shorter and the nights are cooler. Instead of shopping for new sweaters at Anthropologie I should be dealing with all the herbs I planted this spring. At least I’ve got some of the basil taken care of with this Basil Hummus.

This is a winner of a recipe from An Organic Conversation that I found via seaweed snacks. It is simple to prepare and has the perfect amount of garlic and lemon juice. It’s great for dipping and on sandwiches. Love it.

(Nut-Free) Snack Ideas for School from The Full Plate Blog

7 of the Best Brainy Breakfasts from Wholesome Bits

Autumn Grilled Cheese 3 ways from Ashley English on Design Sponge.

6 Ways to Boost Your Immune System This Fall from Simple Homemade.

It’s that time of year again. I’m increasingly convinced that summer is just long enough to make my brain go completely soft around the whole lunch-and-snack-packing dilemma. I could do it all blindfolded a few months ago I swear. Perhaps this little round up will help me get back into the rhythm.

I hope everyone has a semi-smooth transition into the school year. A wise teacher once told me that everything starts to seem normal sometime around Halloween.

Top Ten Countdown of Our Favorite School Snacks

10. Polka Dot Fruit Roll Ups

9. Almond Butter Balls

Send them to school frozen and they hold up perfectly. If your child’s classroom is nut-free, you could try them with sunflower seed butter. But if you do, throw in some chocolate pieces to make it yummy again.

8. Homemade Wheat Thins or Cheese Crackers

7. Kettle Corn

6. Veggie Sticks with Herb Yogurt Dip

Freeze the dip the night before.

5. Homemade Apple Chips and Dried Nectarines

4. Hummus and Pretzels

3. Granola Bars

I love these for nut-free classrooms because the store-bought version isn’t allowed, but these are completely legal.

2. Nutter Butter Rolls

Sometimes I do another version of the roll up with Cocoa Almond Butter from Trader Joe’s. Have you tried it? It’s like crack. I love it.

1. Fresh Fruit

Photo by The Kitchn

The queen of all fresh fruit snacks for school is the apple puzzle. The king is grapes, cut up or otherwise.

One of the best parts of being a food blogger is that I feel required to keep a well-stocked pantry. I keep a large quantity of nuts, specialty flours, and, um, chocolate in my extra fridge that lives in the garage. The likelihood of me following through with a suggestion or random idea goes way up if I have all the ingredients on hand.

Now that I think about it, all it really takes to keep my family snacking healthy is a) a tiny bit of forethought, b) a bowl full of fruit on the kitchen counter, and c) a well-stocked pantry that leans toward healthy real stuff because you know I’m going to reach for that which is salty, fatty, sweet, and easy first if it’s anywhere in the house.

There, now you know all my secrets. Now that we’ve got that all figured out, go have some fun.

Seriously, a friend suggested that I try mixing some finely chopped chocolate into nut butter over a year ago. We’ve been munching away on this fabulous little treat on a regular basis now that the apples are starting to come in. This snack is a lot like Mud Dip. But it’s even quicker to pull together.

Peanut Butter with Chopped Chocolate Recipe

Serve this concoction as a dip with thickly sliced apples. Part of me wants to top it with roasted marshmallows, sliced banana, and top it with crumbled graham crackers…But that’ll have to wait.

It’s easiest to chop chocolate if you go at it if a serrated knife at an angle shaving off a little bit at a time.

2 tablespoons smooth peanut butter
1/2 ounce dark chocolate, chopped fine

Mix. Serve.

Yield: one generous serving
Prep-time: 5 minutes

We took the plunge and planted our first real in-the-ground garden this spring. Excuse me as I gush over how cool it has been to plant seeds, tend to their needs, and harvest their fruit. I don’t think any of us expected things to go as well as they have. It’s entirely possible that a gang of raccoons is circling at this very moment and plotting an invasion, but for the moment we are blissfully enjoying our gardening honeymoon.

The other day my 8-year-old had a moment. She looked over at me while eating veggies and dip and said, “It just hit me Mom. We are actually feeding ourselves.”

When it comes to cucumbers, indeed we are…

We are growing pickling cukes and slicing cukes. I’m already hatching plans for a few more varieties next year. Are Perisan cukes better than American slicing cukes? What about English? We’ll have to grow them all now and find out.

Anyway, back to the problem at hand…

I’ve already made a couple batches of dill pickles but the plants are showing no signs of waning. Rather, I’m a wee bit afraid of what they have in store for me. Come to my house this winter if you like pickles.

Pickling cukes are easy. I know what to do with those (even if it can be a lot of work). But slicing cukes have been demanding more and more attention lately so I decided to make a list of all the ways I’d like my family to eat them up:

1. Cucumber Snack Salad is a family favorite. And don’t forget Cucumber Sandwiches. And Cucumber Yogurt Cups.

2. And Tzatziki too!

3. Dill Cucumber Corn Salad is delightful.

4. I made a pretty killer cucumber soup (recipe from the WSJ, scroll down) the other night.

5. Check out this Cucumber Salad with Mint and Feta from Simply Recipes. And this Bread Salad is so happening once the tomatoes come in. Oh and this White Gazpacho too!

6. If buttermilk dressing is more your thing, check out this Cucumber Ribbon Salad from The Perfect Pantry.

7. If you’re having a party, try some Cucumber Bites with Garlic Herb Filling.

8. Looking for a perfect starter for a meal? Look no further: Cucumber Salad Recipes from Eating Out Loud.

9. Just when you thought things couldn’t get any better, this recipe uses up zucchini as well as cucumber and looks scrumptious: Cucumber and Zucchini Carpaccio Salad from White on Rice.

10. When all else fails, peel a fresh cuke and cut it into wedges. Sprinkle on some fine salt and eat it immediately. Yum.

Any other suggestions are more than welcome. I’m gonna need all the help I can get. Thanks.

To know Belltown Hill Orchards is to love the back corner of their farm store. During the summer, the shelves are loaded with baskets full of seconds that are a fraction of the usual price. The greedy home preserver in me always opts to get too much while visions of tarts and jams dance in my head.

Fresh nectarines are one of my favorites. They are easily my favorite stone fruit. All the brilliant sweetness of a peach without the medical aftertaste or the too-thick fuzzy skin.

Drying nectarines is super easy. The key is to cut along the crease and twist the fruit away from the pit. Slice, arrange on a tray, and dehydrate for 8 to 12 hours.

Store in an airtight container. Nibble on them in the dead of winter. Smile.